Gaming the system: Semiotic indeterminacy and political circulation in the new age of revolution

Greenberg, Jessica R

doi:10.1016/j.langcom.2012.09.003

Cited by 8 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 27 publications

(14 reference statements)

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“…The way that the meaning of protest shifts is an illustrative example. As I discussed in my book (Greenberg 2014), and several articles (Greenberg 2006(Greenberg , 2012(Greenberg , 2016Greenberg and Spasić 2017), battles in Serbia over who has the right to the city and what protest means were about asserting alternative forms of sovereignty. Protestors channeled human energy and creativity into interpretative frameworks through which people might make claims, not just to solidarity but also to political power.…”

Section: Jessica Greenberg Department Of Anthropology University Of mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ilustrativan je primjer način na koji se mijenja značenje prosvjeda. Kao što sam pokazala u svojoj knjizi (Greenberg 2014) i u nekoliko članaka (Greenberg 2006(Greenberg , 2012(Greenberg , 2016Greenberg i Spasić 2017), u bitkama koje su se u Srbiji vodile oko toga tko ima pravo na grad i što znače prosvjedi riječ je bila o utvrđivanju alternativnih oblika suvereniteta. Prosvjednici su usmjerili energiju i kreativnost u interpretativne okvire kroz koje bi ljudi mogli uputiti svoje zahtjeve, usmjerene ne samo solidarnosti nego i političkoj vlasti.…”

Section: Put Od Imaginacije Do Politikeunclassified

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On the Side of Predictable

Petrović-Šteger

Greenberg

Potkonjak

et al. 2020

Etnol. trib. (Online)

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In order to be able to contextualize and understand social worlds, anthropologists pay close attention. We observe how individuals and communities relate to each other and to their ideas. We study the intimate and subjective, as well as the large-scale cosmologies by which people make themselves and the world. Our participatory methods and reflective analysis document the complex, intricate, patterned, and also random aspects of people’s reasoning and actions. These activities, on anthropology’s part, supposedly offer not only critical descriptions of the present (on its historical trajectories), but possible intimations of a society’s future. Anthropological analysis, in other words, not only describes but also anticipates. This position paper focuses on the notions of anticipation, predictability, and possibility in anthropology. It asks what methodological and theoretical assumptions are built into our ways of making predictions about our field sites. It invites the reader to consider the effects certain anticipatory practices have for the people and phenomena we study as well as for the discipline. Centrally, the paper proposes different ways of attending to visions that anticipate the future. By reflecting on my ethnographic and analytical journeys in Serbia, I attempt to explain why I currently make so much of questions of predictability and possibility in both the field and the discipline. My desire is to open up a discussion on the value of cultivating attention to what seems to emerge on the side of predictable.

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Section: Jessica Greenberg Department Of Anthropology University Of mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Put Od Imaginacije Do Politikeunclassified

On the Side of Predictable

Petrović-Šteger

Greenberg

Potkonjak

et al. 2020

Etnol. trib. (Online)

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Media switching often involves entextualization because texts or utterances are removed from a conversation shaped partially by the medium in which communication is taking place and then taken to another medium (see Spitulnik 1996). In analyzing a video game inspired by a Serbian democracy movement, Greenberg (2012) notes that the game designers remove contextually specific markers and the semiotic ambiguity of the mass demonstrations that the designers were referencing, and they did so to support a putatively universal and inevitable set of democratic principles. Entextualization across channels, in this instance, serves to validate some democratic procedures as supposedly free of context and erase others (Greenberg 2012).…”

Section: Medialitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Language and the Newness of Media

Gershon

2017

Annu. Rev. Anthropol.

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How is the newness of new media constructed? Rejecting technological determinism, linguistic anthropologists understand that newness emerges when previous strategies for coordinating social interactions are challenged by a communicative channel. People experience a communicative channel as new when it enables people to circulate knowledge in new ways, to call forth new publics, to occupy new communicative roles, to engage in new forms of politics and control—in short, new social practices. Anthropologists studying media have been modifying the analytical tools that linguistic anthropologists have developed for language to uncover when and how media are understood to provide the possibilities for social change and when they are not. Taking coordination to be a vulnerable achievement, I address recent work that elaborates on the ways that linguistic anthropology segments communication to explore how a particular medium offers its own distinctive forms of authorship, circulation, storage, and audiences.

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“…Paul Manning and Ilana Gershon () examine the ways in which performance and animation can serve as tropes for people who engage with two types of new media: virtual worlds and social media. Focusing on a video game used by a Serbian student resistance movement to train activists in nonviolent revolution, Jessica Greenberg () analyzes how game programming cannot easily incorporate the semiotic indeterminacy that makes the discursive practices of the resistance movement so successful. Considering how notions of authenticity and intention frame the genre of reality television, Rebecca Pardo () examines how various editing strategies—for example, how shots are sequenced and how sounds are mixed—reinscribe a distinction between conceptions of what one sincerely feels versus what one falsely performs in the interpretation of discourse as racist.…”

Section: Media: New and Oldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linguistic Anthropology in 2013: Super‐New‐Big

Reyes

2014

American Anthropologist

103

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In this essay, I discuss how linguistic anthropological scholarship in 2013 has been increasingly confronted by the concepts of "superdiversity," "new media," and "big data." As the "super-new-big" purports to identify a contemporary moment in which we are witnessing unprecedented change, I interrogate the degree to which these concepts rely on assumptions about "reality" as natural state versus ideological production. I consider how the super-new-big invites us to scrutinize various reconceptualizations of diversity (is it super?), media (is it new?), and data (is it big?), leaving us to inevitably contemplate each concept's implicitly invoked opposite: "regular diversity," "old media," and "small data." In the section on "diversity," I explore linguistic anthropological scholarship that examines how notions of difference continue to be entangled in projects of the nation-state, the market economy, and social inequality. In the sections on "media" and "data," I consider how questions about what constitutes linguistic anthropological data and methodology are being raised and addressed by research that analyzes new and old technologies, ethnographic material, semiotic forms, scale, and ontology. I conclude by questioning the extent to which it is the super-new-big itself or the contemplation about the super-new-big that produces perceived change in the world. [linguistic anthropology, superdiversity, new media, big data, technology, semiotics, ontology] RESUMEN En este ensayo, discuto cómo el conocimiento en antropología lingüística en el 2013 ha sido crecientemente confrontado por los conceptos de "superdiversidad" "medios nuevos" y "bases de datos grandes." En la medida en que los "super-nuevos-grandes" pretenden identificar un momento contemporáneo en el cual estamos presenciando un cambio sin precedentes, interrogo el grado al cual estos conceptos dependen de asunciones sobre "realidad" como un estado natural versus una producción ideológica. Considero cómo los super-nuevos-grandes nos invitan a escudriñar varias reconceptualizaciones de diversidad (¿es super?), medios (¿son nuevos), y bases de datos (¿son grandes?) permitiéndonos contemplar inevitablemente el opuesto invocado implícitamente en cada concepto: "diversidad regular," "medios antiguos," "bases de datos pequeñas." En la sección de diversidad, exploro el conocimiento lingüístico antropológico que examina cómo nociones de diferencia continúan siendo involucradas en proyectos del estado-nación, la economía de mercado y la desigualdad social. En las secciones sobre "medios" y "datos," considero cómo cuestiones sobre lo que constituye información y metodología antropológica lingüística están siendo planteadas y abordadas por investigación que analiza nuevas y viejas tecnologías, material etnográfico, formas semióticas, escala y ontología. Concluyo cuestionando en qué medida son los super-nuevos-grandes en sí mismos o la contemplación sobre los super-nuevos-grandes lo que produce el cambio`percibido en el mundo.

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Gaming the system: Semiotic indeterminacy and political circulation in the new age of revolution

Cited by 8 publications

References 27 publications

On the Side of Predictable

On the Side of Predictable

Language and the Newness of Media

Linguistic Anthropology in 2013: Super‐New‐Big

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